thoughts of a writer

Menu

Category Archives: Adventures in Odyssey

Hello, my lovely followers! Time for me to answer your questions! Since there were so many, I’m going to divide the questions and answers into two posts.

Oh my gosh, you guys asked the WACKIEST questions. To say I loved all of them would be an understatement! And I couldn’t believe how many people asked questions – I honestly didn’t think I’d have enough questions for an entire post! You guys are the BEST!

Basically, I couldn’t narrow them down to just a few (and I thought it’d be rude), so here are my answers to ALL of your questions. You can read them all or you can just find your questions. Lady Catherine will never know. ; )

Victoria Nightsky asked:

How would you try to sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo?“Hello, kind sir, I see you have nowhere to put your freshly-harvested meat. I mean, anywhere works because it’s cold everywhere here, but wouldn’t you like a special box to put it in??? You can keep it cold in your… already… cold… igloo? Yeah, maybe it’s not a great idea, but look – it’s got a handle. And you can make it talk like this – see? HELLO. MY NAME IS… FRIDRIS ELBA.”

If you could invite seven people for dinner, dead, alive, real, or fictional, who would they be?Oh goodness. Hmm. I’d probably invite Lin Manuel Miranda, Remus Lupin from Harry Potter, Levi from Fangirl, Balthazar Jones from Lovely Little Losers, Peeta Mellark from The Hunger Games, Neal from Landline, Mac from Eight Cousins, and Domhnall Gleeson. Yep. (Goodness, those are all my favorite book characters and favorite celebrities, but they’re all also my current crushes. GOSH, THAT’D BE SO AWKWARD BUT SO AMAZING.)

Would you rather have a pink dragon or a sparkly unicorn?
A pink dragon, and I’d name it Ciara (after the dragon in the book I wrote when I was younger, duh), and we’d fly around the world together and it’d be awesome.

Would you rather have a lead role in a Broadway musical you don’t like, or be an extra in a movie you love?
Wow. I had to think about this one for a while, but I think I’d go with the lead role in a Broadway play. At the very least, it’d give me experience as an actress and get my name out there. (Whereas if I were an extra in a movie I love, I’d spend the entire time looking for the actors and give them hugs. Which is why I specifically did NOT go be an extra while they were filming Civil War. HA.)

Naomi Bennet asked:

Are you going to publish a second book? (That was a hint.)
HA. Thank you. Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. (You can find all of the information about it here.) I’m gonna try to get an agent and go the traditional route, though, so I have no idea when that’ll happen. I’m in the final editing stages right now (I actually worked on it a lot this morning), and then it’ll go out to beta readers while I look for an agent. Exciting stuff!

What’s your favourite Messy Monday?
Oh gosh. I love all of them!!! I really can’t decide. I love all of the relationship ones, though, and the ones about Christians are great, too. And I really like Brother Brother Time.

Have you ever met any famous people?A few, yeah! Let me think… Well, I once spent a whole week with Rusty Martin (the guy from Courageous) at a college thing, and I allllmost met Hunter Hayes at a concert. I stage door at every Broadway show I go to (Wicked on Broadway, Newsies, Les Miserables, etc), so I get to meet a lot of those people (including the entire original Broadway cast of Cinderella, including Santino Fontana, who played Hans in a little movie called Frozen). Let’s seeeeeeee… I’ve also met an Olympic gold medalist and volunteered at the place where The Patriot was filmed, so that half counts, right? I think that’s it. : P

Have you seen Downton Abbey? (You should.)
I haven’t! I heard that every character dies, so I don’t want to get sucked into that. I suffer enough emotional drama at the hands of fictional characters as it is. XD (I’d like to watch it at some point in the future, though!)

Katie asked:

Have you ever met anyone famous? (Whoops, just saw Naomi commented the exact same thing. I don’t care. I’m keeping it anyway.)
See the previous answer. 🙂 (Of course, I should be constantly meeting tons of people when my book becomes an NY Times Bestseller. *wink*).

What movie are you excited for in 2016? (Oh wait, that’s a stupid question. #civilwar) Okay, apart from Civil War what movie are you excited for?Okay, Civil War is the one I’m probably most excited about. XD It’s gonna be so feelsy but SO GOOD!!! Other than that – Finding Dory, Hail, Caesar!, Rogue One, Star Trek Beyond, Moana, the next Bourne film that’s supposed to come out apparently?!?!, Doctor Strange, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Such a wide variety of genres, but thus is my life. : P.

Pencils or pens? I’m a serious pencil addict, so I wondered what you wrote with. Or maybe you prefer to type?
HMMMM. Such a hard question! When I started seriously writing in 2009, I was a major pencil person. (I wrote so much that I got a dent in my finger, and it’s still there today. #weirdfactsaboutAshley) Now I mostly work on novels&such on my laptop, but when I write in notebooks (ideas and Bible verses and song quotes and journaling &etc) I use pens. I really like a certain set of pens a friend gave me for Christmas two years ago..

Do you listen to Adventures in Odyssey?
I DO! I buy the albums regularly (with a coupon, of course), or I’ll ask for them for Christmas. I’ve been listening basically since I was born (okay, maybe not quite that long). I’m still not over Mitch’s fake death and when he came back – ENGAGED TO SOMEONE OTHER THAN CONNIE?! WHAT THE HECK?! I ship Connie and Jason now, though, even though Jason is probably a lot older than her… (Heh… heh…) I love the stories, and I looooove all of the characters. We quote it a lot, too. Jared was my favorite of the older characters (hello, he’s like a CIA kid!) and I think Barrett is my favorite one now. NO, WAIT. It’s Buck Oliver (Meltsner). He’s just… GAH. I’m in the middle of Album 58 (The Ties That Bind) right now. So good! My dream is to at least intern at Focus On The Family and help write an episode. *sighs dreamily* Anyway. #AIOfangirl.

Have you ever been to a wonder of the world? (Pyramids, Eiffel Tower… Comiccon?)
Well, I consider myself to be a wonder of the world, so… : P jk. I’ve never been outside the US, actually! I live in Georgia, and the farthest west I’ve been is Houston, Texas, and the farthest north I’ve been is NYC (which I think should be a wonder of the world). Does Disney World count??? I went when I was six, but HEY we got tickets for Christmas so we’re going again next month! (There will be multiple blog posts about that.).

AND FINALLY: WHY ARE YOU A FANGIRL?!?!?!
Hahahaha. I knew somebody would ask this. I said I didn’t have good reasons, but then I remembered that I wrote an entire blog post about it once (on another blog which is now dead, lol). Basically the updated version is that I’m a fangirl because I’m passionate about a lot of things (non-fandom things), and that often shifts over to the fandom realm. I rarely don’t get passionate about books, movies, or TV shows, and I love it. I also think that being a fangirl has given me a greater capacity to love other things (such as my friends, family, and God), and it’s definitely rubbed off on other people. So… yeah. : )

Katelyn (2sistersphotos) asked:

How is your writing coming?
FANTASTICALLY! Thanks for asking! I’m currently editing the thirteenth chapter, which means I only have five to go. Then it’ll be off to the beta readers! Even if I don’t work on editing it for a while, I’m constantly thinking through things (and adding to my Pinterest board).

Any big plans for this year?
Besides our dream plan of moving in together? XD Actually, yes. A few vacations, mayyyybe a trip to Maryland for a CollegePlus gathering, building a house, and graduating from college. (Not to mention all of my prospective writing ideas…) WOOT. 2016 is gonna be a huge year for me, and I’m so excited.

Favorite fandoms? ( I know some already, but I like asking :D)
I know you do. ; ) Well, there’s my Broadway obsession (which encompasses everything – Wicked, Phantom, Les Mis, Newsies, Daddy Long Legs, Cinderella, Little Women, HAMILTON…), Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, CandleWasters (Nothing Much to Do and Lovely Little Losers), Harry Potter, Disney (and Pixar), and then the general book fandom. (Gosh, I love so many books.) Newer fandoms are: a tremendously sarcastic Canadian show called Corner Gas, Hamilton (is that new?), and everything Harry Potter (including A Very Potter Musical, which is just !!! – two of my favorite things COMBINED). Okay, I’ll stop. ; )

Clare S. asked:

What is your honest opinion on the Catholic Church? 🙂
Catholic people are awesome. My grandma is Catholic, and my mom was raised Catholic, so I have a few very close ties with the Catholic Church. (Fun fact: I was born on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. So that’s a plus…?) I’ve never been to a Catholic service (scratch that – I remember going once), but I’ve studied it for a World Religions course and another Worldview course. My only concern is that there possibly might be some unsaved Catholics, and I’ve always thought that praying to Mary was kinda sketch.

Dog or cat?
I grew up with cats, so I love them MUCHLY. We’ve had some dogs, too, and I loved them, but I think I’ve always just preferred cats. And not all cats are selfish. My cats were born in our front yard (long story), so we raised them basically from birth. Because of this, they were super sweet and loved us all a lot. They would climb up on my lap when I was reading and I loved it. (Darn, now I want a cat again…)

Is there any way i can read your book without buying it? ^_-
HA. Great question. I think there are some pirated copies out there (*glares in the general direction of whoever did that*), so that’s free but illegal. The cheapest way to get it is on Amazon, in the ebook form. It’s free if you have KindleUnlimited. (You can download the Amazon Kindle app if you don’t have a Kindle – I’ve done it before, even though I have a Kindle lol, and it’s super easy and awesome.) Next step up is probably just buying a paperback copy via Amazon.

James (my brother) asked:

“Is the canoe wood, or aluminum?” (XD I had to put that there.) (Edit: Link provided if you’re lame you don’t know what he’s referencing)
“Oh, look! There’s me and Bob at Sea World!”

What is your favorite Twenty-One Pilots song?
HOW FREAKING DARE YOU. You of all people should know I can’t pick one! *sigh* Okay, I’ll try… Gosh, I love all of them. *thinks for a very very long time* I’m gonna assume you misspelled “album” and go with Vessel (2nd place is self-titled and third is Blurryface). (And my favorite songs on their other albums are: “Air Catcher” (self-titled), “Kitchen Sink” (Regional At Best), and “Goner” (Blurryface).)

Which is your favorite musical?I hate you. *thinks* Okay, my favorite right now (in terms of how often I listen to it) is probably Hamilton, but my favorite of all time has got to be Les Miserables.

If you won $500mil what would you do with it?We went over this yesterday. I’d buy out an entire show of Hamilton and then I’d probably travel a bunch of different places while I finish college and then I’d probably buy a bunch of hardcover books and an apartment to put them in.

If you could time travel to any time period, and spend a week there, what time would it be?
Probably WWII because I just love that time period. I’d do the week Japan surrendered so I could see all of the partying that went on after the war was over.

First, for your viewing pleasure, my The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings inspired nails.

They’re

just practice nails, by the way. I think they turned out pretty well for a first time!

And my Les Miz-themed nails. I’m especially proud of my ‘4’. : )

That’s what my hands look like right now, by the way…. Seriously. One hand is for The Hobbit and the other is for Les Miserables, the awesome movies that are coming out in December (which is the best month of the year). I did them while listening to the completely awesome and very creepy, yet still awesome three part Adventures in Odyssey episodes, “The Labyrinth.”

And it just so happened that the things I’ve been wanting to post about are Hobbit and Les Miz-themed, too! How’s that for spontaneous planning? : )

I’ll start with Les Miz.

Check this out!! I nearly flipped when I saw it on Ally’s blog. Remain calm – and don’t watch it more than three times in a row. It’s not pretty. (I may or may not be speaking from experience….)

Aaaaaand… there are some pretty awesome posters floating around the Internet! I found a few more the other day, available here and here. Javert looks a little weird, but that’s okay because the red ‘Javert’ below him totally makes up for it. This one has to be my favorite, though. Uber cool.

On to The Hobbit!!

This video came out today and I’ve already watched it a few times. Sure, it’s only thirty-three seconds long, but the dialogue between Bilbo and Thorin is sooooo awesome. (And I can’t see Thorin without saying, “It’s Thornton! Look back at me….”)

I knew there was a place where you could watch the trailer with alternate endings, but we were never able to get them to load. And I just found them! Huzzah!

﻿

But the thing about The Hobbit that I’m most ﻿excited about is the music!! I just listened to the entire soundtrack today. In it’s entirety. The whole thing. All. Of. It. And It. Was. Ah.Mazing. Here is the link for you. It’s an hour and forty-five minutes long and the pause button doesn’t work, so I’d suggest you find something good and looooong to do – like math and chemistry and Greek – and listen to it. A few times, if you want to. And let your school take even longer because you’re thinking about what the track titles mean. (‘My Dear Frodo’? Wassup with that, PJ?) My personal favorite songs are all of them, with an emphasis on all of them, but especially ‘My Dear Frodo’ (First the Hobbiton theme, then it’s creepy! Whaaaaaa?), ‘The Adventure Begins’ (It’s so fast-paced and hobbit-y! “I’m going on an adventure!”), ‘An Ancient Enemy’ (Whoooooooaaaaa…. Deep and ominous – that’s how I like it!), ‘RADAGAST THE BROWN’!!! (This one is SO COOL! The electric violin takes the stage and it equals awesomeness. If you don’t want to wait to listen through all the other songs, just click here. It’s awesome. And amazing. And awesomeness sauce. All rolled into one.), ‘Roast Mutton’ (Again, so hobbit-y, but with a dash of foreboding), ‘The Hill of Sorcery’ (Looks like I need to read the book again… And the Radagast the Brown theme is in here a little – awesome!), ‘Warg-Scouts’ (There’s a great John Williams-esque brass part in here, with another pretty awesome cello/bass/timpani solo. So cool!), ‘Riddles in the Dark’ (Which I can’t wait to actually see!! Anyway. This song captures Gollum to a ‘T’! All those tremolos in the string section totally add to the creepiness! And the really long, gradual crescendo at the end – chills, y’all.), ‘Brass Buttons’ (The Warg-Scouts theme in the middle is awesome! I’m dying to see the footage and dialogue during this one! Plus, the end is so awesome. All those grand pauses, then the continuation of awesomeness…. Golly Pete.), ‘Out of the Frying-Pan’ (Golly, jeepers!), ‘A Good Omen’ (Great song! And a really creepy ending – here’s hoping we’ll see Smaug!), then the extended scene song, ‘Dreaming of Bag End’ (The pennywhistle did a little bit of the Hobbiton theme, but a lot of it was new, which I loved!), which was right after ‘Song of the Lonely Mountain,’ the credits song. (And boy, is it worthy of some kind of award!! It totally embodies dwarves and Thorin and The Company. I loved it!! I won’t tell you how many times I listened to it….) You can listen to ‘Song of the Lonely Mountain’ here, by the way. It’s got to be one of my favorite songs on the album. That and ‘Radagast the Brown.’ If you only have time for a few songs, go listen to those.

Wow, that was a lot. I hope you guys take the time to listen to that music, though – it’s totally worth it!! If you’ve already listened to some of the songs, whatd’ya think?!

And all this news about Les Miz!! Goodness gracious. The month of December is already awesome enough (what with Christmas and parties and concerts and recitals and *cough*my birthday!!*cough*) and now it’s going to be even greater. Wow. I can’t wait. I’m going to be reading The Hobbit and probably (hopefully) Les Miserables during my month-long Christmas break (I’ll shout it from the rooftops, I don’t care – I love homeschooling!), so that’ll keep me busy until all these awesome movies come out. Sighhhhh…..

What about you guys? Are you as excited as me? Or is it just me…?

Hoping I’m not the only one REALLY EXCITED about this December….

~Eowyn~

(Oh, yeah…. Bonus Awesome Points if you can correctly guess where the lyrics in the blog post title come from.)

Above, my mutant Independence Day peach cobbler. It was better than it looks!!

I’ve been debating writing this post for a while. I don’t necessarily like writing random posts because, as you all probably know by now, I tend to get a little long-winded. Ha! I’d love to do an entire post on each little thing happening, but I’m not that long-winded!

So. Here we go. The Random Blog Post. It’s full of random things. I’ll be skipping from one subject to another. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you….)

First off, I’m super excited about My Fair Lady at Proms 2012! Anthony Andrews as Professor Higgins!! That’s enough to get me excited – listening to Sir Percy, uh, I mean Anthony Andrews’ version of Professor Higgins, which has been greatly acclaimed… pictures, at least. (No sound or video clips… but it won’t be like that for long!) Can’t you just hear him singing, ‘I’ve grown accustomed to her face….’? Can’t wait!!!

I just found a way to actually listen in – hope it’ll work!!! If not, I shall be one very sad, very disappointed, and very cranky Anthony Andrews fan. : D

Second, heehee…. I don’t think anyone at church last week knew I was a Jedi. Ha! *crickets* I guess I should explain.

I am not a Star Wars fan. Never have been, and probably never will be. There’s just something a leeeetle weird about “The Force” to me…. Anyway, I just got a new phone (Woot! No Internet, though… I got it so I could text a little faster than I was using a flip phone.) and one of the first apps I downloaded was a lightsaber app. Please don’t ask me what posessed me to get it – I don’t know. (But just because I don’t like the movie doesn’t mean I can’t like the special effects and music, right?)

Okay, so I’ve been letting my little brother play with it. And he loves it. He rode in the car for an hour and played with that app the whole time – just changing the colors and type of lightsaber the entire ride! That was two Saturdays ago. I thought I had a good idea going when I told him that he could play with it in church the next day. *sigh* Silly me.

He sat in my lap for the first part of service, then when the sermon started, I pulled my phone out, double-checked the volume to make sure it was on vibrate, and handed it to him. He gave me the hugest and sweetest little smile and then tapped on the hilt of the lightsaber. The laser-blade shot out… complete with the sound effect. AHHH!!! I could feel myself blush as I snatched my phone away and turned it off, then handed him his Bible. Argh. I knew I’d turned the sound off! Weirdness…. My other brother just kept staring at me and silently laughing. *frusterated sigh* After church, Arwen told me that the lightsaber shot out right as Dad turned on the laser pointer and pointed it at the screen. So it looked like the church’s laser pointer was equipped with an awesome sound effect…. *facepalm* Thank goodness that our church is really small – only about eight families and seventy-ish people total. So I didn’t embarass myself that much… well, not really. *facepalm again* Moving on to a less embarassing random topic….

We’ve started listening to Adventures in Odyssey again! We had a really nice Christian library where we lived before and they had all of the AiO albums. We listened to almost all of them, then couldn’t when we moved two states away. Anyway, we decided to buy a few albums at a conference a few months ago and I’ve really enjoyed listening again. It’s not very often that you get funny, suspenseful, Christian entertainment such as radio dramas or movies! I’ve been trying to keep tabs on good indie Christian films in development so that I can see them and actually feel good about something I watched in a theater. (I’d recommend October Baby and No Greater Love – two lesser-known indie films. And there’s alsothe Sherwood Pictures films…. But I really enjoyed October Baby – maybe even more than Courageous? Scandalous, I know….) Anyway. My younger sister is auditioning for the AiO Get In The Show! contest and I’m really hoping she wins… and that has nothing to do with the fact that you get a lot of the albums if you’re in the top twelve! : P

Some of you may or may not know, but I’m a hopeless TV show addict. Old TV shows, specifically. Hogan’s Heroes, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Waltons… I love them all. I also recently discovered Growing Pains! It’s really fun to see Kirk Cameron as a teenager. (And after reading Still Growing, I sort of had to watch the show because he talked about it a lot and got my curiosity aroused!) I don’t know if I could recommend GP, by the way, because there are a few questionable subjects such as dating. The ones after Kirk became a Christian – Season Three and beyond – are better. You can really tell! (But, if you’re looking for a really good TV show to watch, I’d totally recommend The Dick Van Dyke Show. Extremely clean and very funny. But, hey! It’s Dick Van Dyke!!)

Ooh, and speaking of movies…. We watched Captain America for the first time a few days ago! I think Captain America is my favorite superhero, too! (Out of the half-half-dozen I’ve seen, anyway….) Heehee – we were watching it and I kept recognizing people. “Hey, look!! It’s Mr. Thornton!! And that guy from Amazing Grace – the Duke of Kent!! And Elrond!! And that guy from the Kit movie!! And Mace Windu!!” But I totally lost it when Dominic Cooper appeared. The mustache threw me off, but when he said, “We are ready,” I knew who it was. “It’s Willougby!! DON’T TRUST HIM, STEVE!!!” I seriously had my doubts about him for the entire movie… but he was trustworthy. : D He was funny, too.

All in all, I really liked Captain America. My dad used the remote and bleeped out (most of) the language. (Donations to the ClearPlay/TV Guardian fund are welcome….) I really liked all of Steve’s values, which were very different than most people’s today. And that scene when he told Maggie that he was waiting for the right partner? *sigh* Me likes.

On my novel…. I haven’t written since I finished my 50k words! I’m starting to go through withdrawl… I can hear Nikki and Alec calling me… weird, right? I’m going to work on it sometime soon – really soon. Maybe while my younger brother’s friend is here…. I don’t know. Anyway, excerpts are coming… just as soon as I can figure out how to do excerpts. Does anyone have any pointers on that? I just can’t figure out what to put up here! Definitely not the whole thing – it’s not nearly ready – but I don’t want to do too little. Just how much, though?! : P

And my dress for the ball is very nearly started. Heehee. And the fourth part in my Les Miserables series is in the works! Do not fear – it shall come!!! Soon, too!!If you’ve made it this far… you should be commended. Thanks for listening to all my ramblings. : D